A blog with snarky poems and rhyming rants about politicians, pundits, and other putrid people and events that give me heart palpatations--as well as light verse about various and sundry other things.
All content (c) 2009-2010 Elaine Magliaro. All rights reserved.

Friday, April 23, 2010

I'm sorry that I've been neglecting my Political Verses blog lately. I've been working on other writing projects. Sometimes...a news story cries out to me--and I can't ignore it. I just get inspired and HAVE to write a verse about it. Such is the story of Sue Lowden who is running against Harry Reid in the Nevada senate race.

Lowden, a former beauty queen, thinks SHE knows how to solve the problem of rising healthcare costs: BARTERING for doctor's services. Some folks call her idea "chickens for checkups." Here's a segment on Lowden from a recent Rachel Maddow Show:

Does Sue Lowden really think that a system of barter can really replace the complex healthcare fee system in the U.S.? That doctors who accept chickens or house painting as a form of payment can pay their office staff, or their rent, or their utilities, or for the medical equipment they need through bartering with vendors? We don't know, because she hasn't been asked that. But chances are, she really doesn't have a particular depth of knowledge in how the healthcare system works and what the deep-seated problems within it are if she can glibly offer up bartering as a remedy.

Sue Lowden, a Republican candidate challenging Majority Leader Harry Reid for his Nevada Senate seat is refusing to back down from an earlier suggestion that America consider a medical barter system as an alternative to current health care solutions.

On Monday Lowden took the idea one step further.

"Before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor," Lowden told a local news station. "They would say I'll paint your house."

Now, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has launched a new website to ridicule Lowden for her support of the bartering proposal.

The website, Chickens for Checkups, calls Lowden's health care barter system "an old-timey solution for a modern problem," and says that such a program would ask Americans to "barter with their doctors for health care with things like chickens and house painting," items she referenced on a local news program.

About Me

I worked as an elementary school teacher for more than three decades and as a school librarian for three years. I also taught a children's literature course at Boston University from 2002-2008. I served on the advisory board of the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival from 2006-2008 and as a member of the NCTE Poetry Committee from 2009-2012. I am now retired and write poetry for children. "Things to Do," my first children's book, will be published by Chronicle Books in February of 2017.